“My mom was doing her best in those days, and I remember, man, I was about 10 years old, and she handed my brother and I a shotgun. She said, ‘Boys, I need you to go get us something to eat.’ So we went out, brought back what we shot, cleaned it up and mom made an amazing meal with some rice, a homemade sauce, and what we shot.”
“But one time, we had nothing. And this vehicle from the grocery store pulls up, and the guy starts hauling in groceries. I just remember thinking, ‘What is going on?’ My brother and I are running in and out bringing groceries in, and I had tears in my eyes. I remember thinking for the first time that maybe God sees us. Maybe He's paying attention to us.”
“Muay Thai began as a way to challenge myself. But I remember one fight where I ended up breaking this guy's nose. There was blood all over, and I remember looking at him thinking, ‘How am I supposed to tell this guy about the love of Jesus?’”
“I opened up my own gym at that point. And a lot of guys would come in with a lot of anger, and I was able to absorb some of that anger as we sparred. I would talk to them about their anger and why it was there, and just gently started introducing Jesus into their life.”
“But I've identified as a servant all of my life. And so the language of sonship didn’t make any sense to me. Nobody spoke that language to me, until I attended a Canyon Pathways retreat.”
“And when our host, Michael Perron, stood up and said, ‘Guys, everything here is yours, take what you need…because the sons have come home.’ When he said that, something changed in my heart—something old died and something new was birthed.”
